Venue: KP National Cultural Meet 2011 at Oakhurst, CA (July 3rd, 2011)
Written and Directed by: Dileep Tiku & Monika Dhar
Actors:
1) Rajnath (An older civil engineer who migrated to bay area 30 years back) Ashwani Kaul.
2) Rajlaxmi (Rajnath's wife, who is yearning to go to Kashmir) Monica Dulloo Kaul
3) Rakesh (A professional who migrated to bay area 10 years, wants to be a US citizen, and likes to socialize online and in person with his friends and acquaintances) Pawan Raina
4) Renu (Rakesh's wife, who is worried about the facebook invasion after her friend Mantra talks about a divorce due to Facebook) Monika Dhar
5) Mantra (Renu's friend who is a non-Kashmiri tells the story of a person who got divorced due to Facebook) Monica Salman
6) Sunny (Mantra’s husband, who is Kashmiri) Sanju Salman
7) Sameer aka Sam (A professional who recently came to bay area. His mom is in India and is not doing well) Dileep Tiku
8) Sushma aka Sue ( who loves the US life style and wants to stay here) Archana Raina
9) Pushkarnath ( Sam's dad lives in India and follows the Anna Hazare and Ram Dev's activities against corruption in India) Ajay Gariyali
10) Narrator -- This person introduces the people for each scene. We have about 7 scenes in the play. Rajeev Sumbly
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Assiv Te Lassiv
This play is about four Kashmiri families, who are settled in US and live in the same city.
1) The first family is a young couple, who have come to US from India recently. They are about to get their green card, but man is worried about his mother who is not keeping well in India. The wife likes US a lot, but the man’s heart goes out for his mother. The wife is fond of shopping and living in a style. The tussle continues between the wife’s interest to stay in US and the husband’s interest to go back to India. The man talks to his dad on a daily basis to check on his mother’s status and also to discuss politics. The two discuss Ram Dev and Anna Hazare’s fight against corruption in India. The wife overhears the conversation and makes fun of Anna Hazare and Ram Dev’s efforts.
2) The second family is a middle aged couple, who are about to get their US citizenship. The man is a financial advisor, who likes to go on the Facebook and other social media networks to get in touch with his friends, colleagues, clients and other acquaintances. The wife has heard from her friends that some people have gotten divorced after their husbands found their ex girl friends on Facebook. She becomes concerned whenever husband spends time on Facebook. She keeps probing about the Kashmiri girls in her friends list.
a. Ye asyi che saety paran schoolas manz kin collegus manz
b. Ye chay che dohdish sozhan message kin kuny kuny doh
c. Che oshka amis saety professoras nish ghachan suban ha kin shaman.
The man has a confused look when he answers these questions.
The man wants to get citizenship, but the lady doesn’t want to give up the Indian citizenship especially after learning about facebook caused divorces.
3) The third couple is older with grown up kids and about to get retired. Rajnath is a civil engineer and has been involved with town planning in his assignments before. The lady is yearning to go to Kashmir. She keeps remembering how she grew up in Kashmir and wants to visit Kashmir.
Ba chas dapan kaav lagith ghacha ha Kasheeri.
Her husband understands her feelings and promises to take her to Kashmir for a visit. He calls the other two families for a get together (Assun te ghindun) and shares with them about their planned trip to Kashmir. The conversation leads everybody to think what people would do if we had a Kashmir in US with same people, language, food and settings. One of them says to her wife that you would have tweeted me “Yuthuy offica pyad wapas yikh, kandras nish anzi garam Katlam don dollaran”. The sign boards would be in Kashmiri, but only in Devnagri script. They make some funny translations of the sign boards…”
4) The wife of the fourth couple is Renu’s friend and is called Mantra. Her husband is experienced in developing organizations for new projects.
In the end all the people meet at a get together and developed an idea of having a Kashmiri colony in Bay Area called “Assiv Te Lassiv”.
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